


ten

by choncena



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Steve Rogers, Inspired by The Song of Achilles, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Natasha Romanov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 17:14:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20085829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choncena/pseuds/choncena
Summary: steve hates the number.





	ten

_10\. _

He still remembers how they first met. 

The coldness, the hostility. There was blue everywhere surrounding the anger and tension they had been absorbed in since Germany.

There was the helicarrier, then the scepter. 

The biting words and the tight grips. 

The ghost of a familiar face and the loss of a life abandoned and buried underneath Arctic ice.

_9._

“I know guys worth none of that worth ten of you,” he had said, words scathing against the thick skin worn like armor.

He didn’t know that then.

_8._

They win and he gives the man a smile out of relief. It’s the first of many, but they become a rarity between the two of them.

Their relationship flourishes but both of them are still alone, tethered but never coming closer.

_7._

He sees the fear in those brown eyes but he refuses to ask.

They fight again, the repulser blast hot from where it burned against his chest.

They’re angry again and the cracks form deeper and deeper as the days pass and Ultron gathers his army.

_6._

“I don’t trust a guy without a dark side.”

“Well maybe you haven’t seen it yet.”

_5\. _

“Like the old man said—”

There’s no hesitance and he can almost forget the way his affection for the man hides the underlying current of distrust between them.

He wants to ignore the past two years of stolen kisses and laughter as he holds the man tight in his arms, but all of that is at the forefront of his mind and he can’t forget it. 

He doesn’t want to forget it.

“—Together.”

_4._

He steals another year of loving the genius.

They bury the tension beneath layers of whispered promises and the tight heats of their sweat-slick bodies as they slide together in unison. The tension turns into arguments and open talks and eventually, they stabilize themselves into a whirlwind romance that he sees lasting forever.

His dog tags lay light against the brunet’s chest at all times and it’s a reminder of a bright future. 

_3._

But nothing lasts forever.

The find themselves at opposite ends once again and the distrust doesn’t come from him this time.

“He’s my friend,” he says but the words taste like bile on his tongue.

“And I thought I was more.”

_2._

The matching silver ring that sits around his finger is dusted by snow and blood.

He doesn’t turn around and the lead sitting on his chest gets heavier.

_1._

It takes ten days to recover the body.

It takes another ten for the UN, the US government, and Pepper Potts to announce a bounty for his head.

And it takes ten seconds for Natasha to take her eyes off the television screen and cross the room to punch him across the face.

Steve lets her use him for her own wrath. 

She screams and thrashes in Clint’s arms before she could beat him dead in a similar fashion to what he’s done.

“Natasha, stop—”

“Kill me! It won’t bring him back!” She turns red eyes to him, fiery in her anger. “He was worth ten of you! Ten! And you sent him to his death!”

He can’t hold back his own anguish.

“I tried to stop him!”

“You are the one who made him go.” She fights her way out of the archer’s hold and steps towards him but doesn’t lift another fist to his face. “He fought to save you, and your darling reputation, because he couldn’t bear to see you suffer!”

Steve closes his mouth, realizes then, as he tunes into the news playing on repeat in red on the screen.

The others watch, horrified and shocked.

“You have never deserved him,” Natasha says flatly to his crumpled body as he sobs in regret, “I don’t know why he ever loved you. You only care for yourself!”

Her words bite the same way Tony’s did that first night. 

Hers cut deeper, though, and there are no more stitches to heal him.

His gaze meets her and he is afraid for the darkness that he sees within.

“I hope they kill you.”

_0._

The cold is familiar and he embraces it.

“Do you think I don’t hope the same?"

**Author's Note:**

> I was talking about how I wanted to read more angst fics of tony dy*ng in siberia and they came up short so here's my very short take on it (also bc i wanted to use the convo btwn achilles and briseis in tsoa and thought this was fitting)


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